When you call 911 during an emergency, the first voice you hear is that of a telecommunicator. This week is National Public Safety Telecommunications. The week is to honor those who answer emergency calls and in Washington County there are 10 telecommunicators with a combined total of 129 years of experience answering emergency calls. Supervisor Cara Sorrells explains they answer the call and then send out the necessary emergency personnel to the scene, and some calls can be intense and during the training period they work on how to handle different situations. She says, “Really, you can’t react to it until later, after it all calms down. So it is kind of hard, and I think people that work here will tell you the calls that are probably the worse are calls with children.”

Teresa Todd is the assistant supervisor; she and Issak Kleese received the team telecommunicator of the year award earlier this spring. Speaking of her colleagues, she said, “Everybody here does such a phenomenal job. … It takes a special person to do this job.” To hear more about the work they do in Washington County listen to the Washington Pages with Sorrells and Todd.